Dead Man's Lane

by Kate Ellis

  Without warning she lunged at Neil, who was standing closest, and Wesley cursed himself for not anticipating what she’d do. Neil cried out and the mattock he was holding dropped to the floor with a crash.

  Wesley made a grab for Gemma but he was too slow. The woman escaped his grasp and hurtled down the stairs. Neil was on the floor now, clutching his stomach and groaning, and Grace, emerging from her state of shock, threw herself to her knees beside him, ripping off her cashmere cardigan and using it to stem the bleeding.

  Wesley watched the soft pale fabric turn a glistening scarlet as he knelt beside Grace, murmuring words of reassurance but feeling helpless. He could hear Rachel calling an ambulance, speaking to the call handler with professional calm although there was a tremble in her voice. He prayed the ambulance would hurry because Neil was losing a lot of blood which was spreading over the splintery floorboards.

  As Grace applied pressure to the wound Neil’s eyes fluttered closed.

  ‘Come on,’ Wesley whispered in his ear. ‘Don’t leave us now.’

  59

  Time seemed to slow as Wesley bent over his unconscious friend, listening anxiously for the sound of the sirens which would herald the arrival of help.

  He was torn between staying with Neil and pursuing Gemma Pollinger, who was out there somewhere, planning her next move.

  Once the ambulance and the police back-up had arrived he rushed out of the cottage. A few members of the archaeological team had stayed late to lift the skeleton and were still working nearby and Wesley was suddenly struck by the dreadful possibility that, if they’d challenged her, Gemma might have launched an attack on them too. He ran through the gates, filled with dread, but to his relief he saw they were unharmed, packing up and piling boxes of equipment in their gazebo, oblivious to the drama that had been acted out on the other side of Dead Man’s Lane.

  He rushed across the uneven ground towards the open trenches and when he shouted out they turned to look at him.

  ‘Have you seen a woman – tall, fair hair, blue quilted jacket?’

  One of the men raised his hand as though he was answering a question in class. ‘She ran past a couple of minutes ago, making for the house in one hell of a hurry. We’ve packed up the skeleton. Neil’s taking it to Exeter. Do you know where he is? He ran off a while ago with a mattock and we’ve not seen him since.’ He looked round the group, who were looking increasingly lost without their leader.

  ‘I heard sirens,’ said one of the women. ‘Is something going on?’

  It wasn’t a question Wesley felt ready to answer. ‘I’ll tell you later,’ he mumbled before setting off towards the house, running as fast as he could manage, cursing his lack of speed. He’d heard the sound of power tools earlier which meant some of the workmen were still up there; surely if she tried anything they would be able to overpower her, he thought. And yet he knew an attack was the last thing they’d be expecting so they’d be unprepared.

  Once he reached the house everything seemed normal and all he could hear was the sound of distant hammering. When Wesley dashed inside he came face to face with a startled electrician. Like the archaeologists, he was working overtime.

  ‘Have you seen a woman?’ He gave a brief description but the man looked at him blankly before scolding him for not wearing a hard hat. Health and safety mattered, the man reminded him with an officious bark.

  Glen Crowther appeared at the top of the staircase. ‘I saw someone heading for the old barn a few minutes ago. Called out to the stupid cow but she ignored me. It’s a building site – she could get herself killed and with the boss not here … ’

  ‘Shut all the outer doors and don’t let anyone in or out,’ Wesley ordered before shooting out into the weak sunshine. The barn was behind the main house, part of the old farm buildings as yet untouched by the building work.

  He skirted the house and when he reached the barn he saw that one of the huge double doors was ajar. He squeezed through the gap and found himself in a large space full of rusting farm equipment and bales of rotting straw. The place smelled of decay and for a few moments he stood still and listened to the soft cooing of the wood pigeons nesting in the great rafters above his head. Just as in the cottage earlier they seemed to be watching and commenting on the unfolding drama like a Greek chorus.

  Then all of a sudden he heard a crash as a pile of straw bales tumbled to the ground at the far end of the barn, sending up a cloud of dust. When it cleared he could see something hanging from one of the rafters, a human figure swinging to and fro, and he acted without thinking, hardly aware of rushing over to grab the woman’s dangling feet, supporting her weight as she struggled for breath. His instinct to save life was automatic.

  Gemma Pollinger had tried to hang herself.

  60

  ‘I hope there’s an officer on duty outside her door.’

  ‘What do you think I am, Wes? Daft? She’s being watched day and night. We don’t want her slipping off again, not after last time. How’s Neil?’

  Wesley didn’t reply. When he closed his eyes he could still see his friend lying there as Grace fought to stem the bleeding. He was in Tradmouth Hospital too, in a ward not too far away from where Gemma Pollinger was recovering. He’d been in the ICU for twenty-four hours but now the doctors, pleased with his progress, had put him in the high dependency unit. A procession of Neil’s colleagues had been to visit him, wearing the confused look of a flock of sheep without a shepherd, and Wesley had tried to reassure them that he was receiving the best of care and that he’d soon be back supervising the dig. In the meantime he promised he would make sure the builders didn’t begin any work before the archaeology was completed.

  ‘If she’s up to talking we might as well have a word,’ said Gerry, interrupting his thoughts.

  Wesley nodded, careful not to betray the apprehension he felt. Gemma Pollinger had murdered five people and would have killed more if she hadn’t been stopped. And without Grace’s quick thinking he might have lost his friend.

  They arrived at the hospital and made straight for the side ward where they found Gemma guarded by a uniformed constable. When they entered she was sitting up in bed listening to music through earphones and the normality of the scene jarred with the horror of what she’d done.

  When she saw her visitors she took out the earphones and stared at the newcomers defiantly.

  ‘You might be interested to know that the man you stabbed at the cottage is going to live,’ said Gerry, relieving Wesley of the need to broach the subject. She looked away as though the news didn’t interest her.

  ‘Why did you try to kill yourself?’ said Wesley softly.

  She’d pulled her hospital nightgown up to her chin and as she shrugged her shoulders it slipped a little to reveal the marks of the rope around her neck.

  ‘Because I couldn’t face spending the rest of my life locked up.’ Her voice sounded hoarse.

  ‘Like Jackson Temples has,’ said Wesley quietly. ‘He had nothing to do with the deaths of those girls, am I right?’

  ‘He deserved everything he got.’

  ‘Why’s that?’

  She pouted like a spoilt child who couldn’t get her own way. ‘I asked him to paint me like the others. I told him I didn’t mind all that kinky stuff with ropes but he laughed and said no thanks. I wasn’t the type he was looking for.’ She leaned forward, her eyes burning with fury. ‘I watched them go into his studio preening and smirking; looking at me as though I was something they’d trodden in. I thought he’d notice me once they’d gone but he still treated me as though I didn’t exist. I made him pay, that’s all.’

  ‘I still don’t understand,’ Wesley said. ‘You’re an attractive woman so why … ’

  She looked at him as though he was being particularly obtuse. ‘Do you know what they used to do when I was at Fulton Grange? They used to wait for me after school and walk behind me calling me names. Ugly Gemma. Face like the back of a cow.’

  ‘Children can be cr
uel.’

  ‘They weren’t children. They looked like women. When I couldn’t stand any more I left school and got a job but whenever I went out there were still girls just like them – smirking and whispering behind my back. They thought they were better than me but I taught them different.’ She gave a throaty laugh. ‘They weren’t so beautiful once I’d finished with them.’

  She began to laugh, a sound that made Wesley shudder. He saw disgust on Gerry’s face; the disgust of a man who’d seen this killer’s handiwork at first hand.

  Wesley had seen the picture Gemma’s parents gave the police at the time of her disappearance and, although he could still see the resemblance, over the years Gemma had acquired a perfect nose, a sculpted chin, larger eyes and hair that was now the colour of honey. The one thing she hadn’t thought to change was the heart-shaped birthmark on her left hand. That was what Bert Cummings had recognised and it had sealed his fate. If she’d realised Roberta had seen it, her life too would have been cut short.

  ‘You had cosmetic surgery.’

  ‘I didn’t want to be invisible any more so as soon as I had enough money … ’

  ‘You stole the money to fund it?’

  ‘At first I saved up for it then I began stealing from the petty cash wherever I worked. I spent years temping, helping myself to whatever I could to pay for the procedures. Then I got the job with Dale Keyes and I saw my opportunity.’

  ‘You were the Jenny who worked for him. You cleared out his company’s bank account.’

  Her bitter smile gave him a glimpse of the original Gemma beneath the surgically altered exterior.

  ‘Ten out of ten, Inspector. I’d had all my surgery by then but I’d borrowed a lot and run up huge debts. I paid them off with what I stole from Dale’s business and I thought I’d got away with it when he was reported dead. I thought everyone would forget about me.’

  ‘But you were recognised by someone he knew and he came here to look for you. He wanted to get back what you owed him so he had to die.’

  Gerry had been sitting in stunned silence but now he spoke. ‘If you’d changed so much how come Linda recognised you from the time she spent at Strangefields Farm?’

  ‘She didn’t at first, although she did ask me if we’d met before. I said we hadn’t, of course.’ She held out her left hand and he saw the birthmark standing out red between the forefinger and thumb. ‘I should have had it removed but it never seemed important. I always wore a plaster over it at work, just in case.’

  ‘Did you remember her?’

  ‘Yes, but I thought she was only a kid so I didn’t take much notice of her.’

  ‘I don’t understand why you came back to Tradmouth,’ Wesley said. ‘Why risk being recognised?’

  ‘I didn’t think I was taking a risk. It was over two decades ago and I think I’ve changed beyond all recognition, don’t you? I was curious because I’d seen Jack’s paintings for sale on the internet … and I’d heard Strangefields was going to be made into a holiday village.’ She gave a bitter laugh. ‘Then I read online that there was a campaign to prove Jack’s innocence and I wanted to know what was going on. I needed to find out what they were saying about me and whether anyone was suggesting I might still be alive. I went to a meeting and that’s where I saw Linda – she stayed at the back of the room where she couldn’t be seen. I recognised her from all those years ago and when I learned she had a florist’s shop and was looking for an assistant it was as though it was meant. I’d worked in a florist’s once, you see, and I knew that then I could keep a close eye on her and any developments in Jack’s campaign.’

  ‘Why did you kill her?’

  She didn’t answer immediately and when she finally spoke it was almost in a whisper so that Wesley had to lean forward to hear what she was saying.

  ‘My plaster came off one day while I was washing my hands and she came into the room before I could replace it. She saw my birthmark and said one of the missing girls had had one exactly the same. She asked me straight out if I was her. I denied it of course but I knew she was onto me and it would only be a matter of time before she gave me away. She told me who she was and she said there was a group who wanted to prove Jackson’s innocence. She even asked me if I was willing to help.’

  She shook her head, as though she could hardly believe Linda’s naivety.

  ‘I copied her house key and took some rope from the shop display – she’d taken some earlier for her play so she never noticed more was missing. It wasn’t quite the same as the rope I’d used at Strangefields but it was similar enough and I knew it’d do the job just as well.’ She looked as though she was reliving a happy memory. ‘She always went to a play rehearsal on Monday nights so I went round to her house and waited for her in the dark. As soon as she came home I hit her, left her stunned, then I pretended to turn up and said I’d take her to A and E. Only I took her to Bereton Lake instead and finished what I’d started.’

  ‘What about Dale Keyes?’

  ‘One of his friends saw me in Linda’s shop and followed me home. That’s how Dale found me. I promised to pay the money back but I said I needed time to get it together. He gave me his phone number and told me to get in touch when I had the cash. I texted him and asked him to meet me at the creek because it was private but he had no idea what I had in mind. I presumed he’d told his girlfriend about me. That’s why I had to deal with her too.’

  ‘You didn’t kill her right away.’

  She swallowed hard. ‘I wanted her to know that just because she’s beautiful it doesn’t mean she can trample all over other people. I wanted to destroy her face and I needed her to know what was happening and why.’ The pitch of her voice was growing shriller with bitter emotion. ‘I didn’t expect the pills I put in the wine to wear off so soon.’ She looked disappointed, annoyed with herself for miscalculating so badly.

  ‘Dale never told her who you were. She was no threat to you,’ said Wesley.

  ‘I don’t believe you,’ she said like a petulant child.

  ‘Let’s get back to the Strangefields girls.’

  She closed her eyes, smiling.

  ‘At school I used to dream about getting a gun and shooting them all down. Only when I got to Strangefields and saw how Jack painted them I had a better idea. They deserved it. I wanted them to suffer like I had all those years, and I wanted him to pay for how he treated me.’

  ‘You killed them at Strangefields?’

  She shook her head. ‘That would have been too risky. I sent them notes telling them to go to the cottage. They thought it was one of Jack’s little games. The notes said not to tell anyone and they didn’t. It was easy.’

  ‘How did you move the bodies?’ said Wesley. ‘Surely you didn’t put them in the river by yourself.’

  She looked away. ‘My brother, Graham, had access to my dad’s firm’s van and the motor boat. He would have done anything I asked him.’

  ‘He helped you?’

  She nodded slowly. ‘After the first one went wrong – after Carrie Bullen survived.’

  ‘Who drove Carrie to the river bank?’

  ‘I did. I’d passed my test and I borrowed the van but after it all went wrong I knew I had to put them in deeper water. That’s when I asked Graham to help me.’

  ‘So he killed himself because he couldn’t live with what he’d done?’

  Wesley was surprised when she looked him in the eye. Her gaze was piercing, unblinking. He had to look away.

  ‘His conscience began to get the better of him. He said he didn’t want to help me any more and when he started talking about going to the police I said we needed to discuss it and why didn’t we go for a walk. I got him to drive to Littlebury and … ’

  ‘You pushed him off the cliff?’

  She paused. ‘I had no choice. Anyway, after that I knew I had to disappear for good.’

  ‘Tell us how you did it,’ said Wesley.

  ‘I left plenty of evidence at Strangefields to incriminate Jack
then I picked up the bag I’d left at the cottage. My “going away” bag I called it. I’d got some money together – saved up and taken some from home – and some from Jack when he wasn’t there.’

  ‘Where did you go?’

  ‘Up north at first – Leeds. Then I went to London. It seemed more … impersonal. Best place to get lost in the crowd.’

  ‘How did you know about the cottage?’

  ‘It belonged to a relative of Jackson’s and he had a key. I pinched it ’cause he never went near the place. Why would he when he had Strangefields? It was my private space. I was surprised to find it still in the same state when I came back.’

  ‘Tell us why you killed Bert Cummings.’

  ‘He saw me on the ferry and he came up to me; started staring at my face – then at my hand. Once I’d got rid of Linda I got careless about wearing my plaster. “It’s Gemma, isn’t it?” he said in that intense way he always had. He recognised my birthmark at once ’cause I’d been his star pupil at Fulton Grange. He told me he’d heard my dad was in a nursing home and didn’t I think I should let him know I was safe … as if I could care less.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘I’d seen a lad with him earlier and I couldn’t take the risk of him telling anyone he’d recognised me so I found out where he lived and paid him a visit. It was for the best.’

  ‘For the best?’ Gerry said in a low growl. ‘Who for?’

  Wesley stood up, his chair clattering backwards over the hospital linoleum. Gerry did the same, turning his head away from the woman in the bed.

  ‘Keep an eye on her,’ Gerry said to the constable on his way out.

  61

  As Wesley walked through the museum door he scanned the room for Joe Hamer. He hadn’t seen the man since the case against Gemma Pollinger had been wrapped up and handed to the CPS and he was surprised that there was no sign of him. He’d been so sure he’d be there, showing off his generosity. Maybe he intended to make a grand entrance once everyone had arrived.